External microphone for an unmanned aerial vehicle

ABSTRACT

Several embodiments include a remote tracker for a videography drone. The remote tracker can include a spatial information sensor and a microphone configured to capture audio data surrounding the remote tracker. The remote tracker can also include a logic control component configured to decorate the audio data with location-based metadata or temporal metadata. A network interface of the remote tracker can communicate with the videography drone, including streaming the audio data captured by the microphone to the videography drone.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional PatentApplication Ser. No. 62/159,794, Entitled “EXTERNAL MICROPHONE FOR ANUNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE,” filed May 11, 2015, which is incorporated byreference herein in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

At least one embodiment of this disclosure relates generally to unmannedaerial vehicles (UAVs).

BACKGROUND

UAVs for consumers have traditionally been limited to entertainment astoys or as hobbyist collector items. Recently, however, UAVs have beenused for personal photography and videography. A UAV can be equippedwith a portable power source and an image capturing apparatus, such as acamera or other types of sensors. For example, a photographer or avideographer can use a UAV to photograph or film athletes participatingin outdoor activities when there are no overhead obstructions. The UAVcan also be used to document special occasions, such as weddings,engagement proposals, and other activities that may occur in an openfield. These applications require video recording along with audio tofully capture the moment. Conventional UAVs carry a camera and captureaudio from the air, which is very low quality because of noise from thepropellers and distance from the user.

DISCLOSURE OVERVIEW

Disclosed is a design of a UAV with a camera and an external microphonethat records audio directly from the user. The noise created bypropellers on a UAV, as well as the typical distance a UAV flies fromits subject makes audio collected by the UAV useless. Adding an externalmicrophone in a remote tracker carried by the subject enables an UAV tocombine and synchronize audio from the remote tracker with the videocaptured by the UAV.

In some embodiments, the audio is streamed via electromagnetic signals(e.g., WiFi, Bluetooth, Bluetooth low energy, infrared, laser, otherradiofrequency, etc.) to the main camera system in the UAV. In realtime, the audio is streamed to the main system to ensure that audio isrecorded in the event that the microphone is lost or damaged. This alsoreduces the need for a large memory storage solution on the microphonedevice.

In some embodiments, audio is saved on the microphone device. Audio canbe saved in raw or encoded format (e.g., MP3) on the microphone deviceand can be later synchronized with the video. This can be used if awireless connection with the main video system is not possible, due tointerference or unreliability. This also reduces the need for an RFconnection between the two devices.

In some embodiments, the microphone device can be clipped onto clothingto better capture user speech. The microphone device can be part ofvarious kinds of accessories (e.g., clips, plastic cases, remotetrackers, etc.) and various kinds of form factors.

For applications that require user speech to be recorded, properplacement of a microphone is important to the quality of the audio. Aspecial clip can be used to ensure that the device is mounted near thesubject's mouth. The attachment mechanism can be a necklace, a clip tothis shirt, a headband, an armband, or any combination thereof. Forexample, the attachment mechanism can be modularly detachable tofacilitate convenient switching of attachment mechanism types. Similarmechanical mounts can be used on machines or other parts of a subject tocapture specific types of sounds: for example, hard mounting to askateboard to capture the sound of the wheels rolling.

In some embodiments, the microphone device is waterproof and can captureunderwater audio. Ruggedizing of the microphone device can enable theuser to be recorded in more extreme environments, which can yield moreinteresting content. In some embodiments, a plastic case is provided forthe microphone that protects the device from dust and water. Thisreduces the cost and complexity of the device, and allows for a smallerdevice that can be used when waterproofness and dust proofing are notrequired.

In some embodiments, a Global Positioning System (GPS) timestamp is usedto synchronize the audio with the video. Both the UAV and the microphonedevice have internal GPS modules that periodically record the GPStimestamp. The audio and video are later integrated by aligning thesetimestamps. In some embodiments, a system can be used to synchronize theaudio and video by sharing a unique event or time based data between thetwo devices.

In some embodiments, the camera on the UAV is mounted on a vibrationisolation system. The vibration isolation system can reduce vibrationfrom the propellers to ensure sharper video. The vibration isolationsystem can protect the glass lens from impacts. The vibration isolationsystem can enable the UAV to be more rugged than conventionaldrone-camera systems. The camera lens may be one of the most fragileparts. In some embodiments, the vibration isolation system involves ahard shell that surrounds the camera. For example, the hard shell can bemade of rubber, so that the dampening is less hard. This enables formore impact space.

Some embodiments of this disclosure have other aspects, elements,features, and steps in addition to or in place of what is describedabove. These potential additions and replacements are describedthroughout the rest of the specification

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), inaccordance with various embodiments.

FIG. 2A is a top view of a remote tracker of an UAV, in accordance withvarious embodiments.

FIG. 2B is a side view of the remote tracker of FIG. 2A.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating components of a UAV, inaccordance with various embodiments.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating components of a remote tracker ofa UAV, in accordance with various embodiments.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a method of recording a videoutilizing an UAV and a remote tracker, in accordance with variousembodiments.

The figures depict various embodiments of this disclosure for purposesof illustration only. One skilled in the art will readily recognize fromthe following discussion that alternative embodiments of the structuresand methods illustrated herein may be employed without departing fromthe principles of embodiments described herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) 100, inaccordance with various embodiments. In several embodiments, the UAV 100is a videography drone that includes a camera 104. The camera 104 can befor filming and/or for photographing. The UAV 100 can be a copter. Forexample, the UAV 100 includes one or more propellers 108. In variousembodiments, the UAV 100 is controlled by one or more operator devices,such as a remote tracker (see FIG. 2) and/or a drone control applicationrunning on a general-purpose device (e.g., a mobile device, such as asmart phone, a laptop, or a wearable device).

FIG. 2A is a top view of a remote tracker 200 of an UAV (e.g., the UAV100), in accordance with various embodiments. FIG. 2B is a side view ofthe remote tracker 200 of FIG. 2A. The remote tracker 200 can be coupledwirelessly to the UAV. The remote tracker 200 can be a portable deviceseparate from the UAV. For example, the remote tracker 200 can be shapedas a puck or a disk. In the illustrated top view, the remote tracker 200is circular. In other embodiments, the remote tracker 200 can have arectangular or oval top view. In the illustrated side view, the remotetracker 200 can have a rounded side profile.

The remote tracker 200 can include a microphone 202, a first inputbutton 206, a second input button 210, a power port 214, or anycombination thereof. The remote tracker 200 can include a protectivecase 218 enclosing various components (e.g., as described in FIG. 4) andexposes the first input button 206, the second input button 210, and thepower port 214. The protective case 218 can at least partially enclosesthe microphone 202. For example, the protective case 218 can expose atleast a portion of the microphone 202 to record external sound. In someembodiments, the remote tracker 200 can include multiple microphones.For example, the remote tracker 200 can include four microphones spacedequally apart (e.g., 90° apart and along the same radius from thecenter).

The first input button 206 can be a round shaped button in the center ofthe remote tracker 200. The second input button 210 can be a ring-shapedbutton (e.g., a complete ring or a segment of a ring) surrounding thecenter of the remote tracker 200. The input buttons enable a usercarrying the remote tracker 200 to interact with a logic componenttherein. For example, clicking on or holding down one of the inputbuttons can turn the remote tracker 200 on or turn the UAV on. Inanother example, clicking on or holding down one of the input buttonscan mute, start, pause, or stop an audio recording of the microphone 202or start, pause, stop, or censor a video recording of a camera (e.g.,the camera 104) of the UAV.

The power port 214 can be a universal serial bus (USB) port. The powerport 214 can accept a cable with an adapter head that plugs into thepower port 214. The cable can deliver electrical power (e.g., directcurrent (DC) power) to charge the remote tracker 200. In someembodiments, the power port 214 can also be a communication port thatenables a wired interconnection with an external computing device. Forexample the wire interconnection can be used to download data stored ina memory of the remote tracker 200 and/or to update or debuglogical/functional components within the remote tracker 200.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating components of a UAV 300 (e.g.,the UAV 100), in accordance with various embodiments. The UAV 300 caninclude a camera 302, a vibration isolation system 304 for the camera302, a processor 306, a memory 308, a network interface 310, or anycombination thereof. Optionally, the UAV 300 can include a light source314 (e.g., camera flash or a flashlight). The light source 314 canprovide illumination to the subject of the camera 302. The camera 302can be the camera 104 of FIG. 1. In some embodiments, the UAV 300 caninclude a spatial information sensor 318 (e.g., an accelerometer, a GPSmodule, a motion detector, a gyroscope, a cellular triangulation module,other inertial sensors, etc.). The processor 306 can implement variouslogical and functional components (e.g., stored as processor-executableinstructions in the memory 308) to control the UAV 300 in real-time inabsence of explicit real-time commands from an authorized user. However,in several embodiments, the authorized user can configure (e.g., via adrone control application) the operating modes of the UAV 300 prior toor during its flight. The drone control application can implement aninteractive user interface to configure the UAV 300 and/or a remotetracker of the UAV 300. The drone control application can be a mobileapplication.

The network interface 310 can enable wireless communication of the UAV300 with other devices. For example, the network interface 310 enablesthe UAV 300 to communicate wirelessly with a computing device (e.g., amobile device) running the drone control application (e.g., a mobileapplication). In several embodiments, the network interface 310 can alsoenable the UAV 300 to communicate with a remote tracker (e.g., theremote tracker 200 of FIG. 2 and/or the remote tracker 400 of FIG. 4).In some embodiments, the network interface 310 enables a computingdevice to update firmware or software of the UAV 300 (e.g., stored inthe memory 308).

In several embodiments, the UAV 300 can also include an energy storage324 and a driver circuit 326. The energy storage 324, for example, canbe a battery, a fuel cell, a fuel tank, or any combination thereof. Thedriver circuit 326 can be configured to drive propellers (e.g., thepropellers 108 of FIG. 1) of the UAV 300. The processor 306 can controlthe driver circuit 326. The driver circuit 326, in turn, canindividually control the driving power and speed of each propeller.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating components of a remote tracker400 (e.g., the remote tracker 200) of a UAV (e.g., the UAV 100 and/orthe UAV 300), in accordance with various embodiments. The components ofthe remote tracker 400 can be enclosed by a protective shell (e.g., theprotective case 218 of FIG. 2). In some embodiments, the remote tracker400 includes an impact dampener 404 between the protective shell (e.g.,the protective case 218) and the components (e.g., a spatial informationsensor 402, logic control component 406, a memory 408, and a microphone410) of the remote tracker 400.

The remote tracker 400 can include the spatial information sensor 402.For example the spatial information sensor 402 can be a globalpositioning system (GPS) module, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, acellular triangulation module, other inertial motion sensors, or anycombination thereof. In some embodiments, the spatial information sensor402 is a GPS module. The spatial information sensor 402 can be a GPSmodule of the same model and type as the spatial information sensor 318of the UAV 300.

The remote tracker 400 can be a portable device to be carried by a userof the UAV. The remote tracker 400 further includes the logic controlcomponent 406, the memory 408, the microphone 410, a network interface414, a light source 418, or any combination thereof. In someembodiments, the remote tracker 400 includes a wearable attachmentmechanism 420 (e.g., a belt, a strap, fastener, a clip, a hook, aheadband, an armband or any combination thereof). The logic controlcomponent 406 can implement various logical and functional components(e.g., stored as machine executable instructions in the memory 408) ofthe remote tracker 400.

In several embodiments, the remote tracker 400 can passively control theUAV 300 in real-time without the user's direct involvement or input inreal-time. For example, the user can configure the UAV 300 to follow theremote tracker 400. That is, the user does not control the movement ofthe UAV 300, but the UAV 300 tracks the user movement via the spatialinformation sensor 402 of the remote tracker 400. The network interface414 can send the spatial information captured by the spatial informationsensor 402 to the UAV 300 such that the UAV 300 navigates within aconstant distance (and/or constant direction/angle) from the remotetracker 400 and points the camera 302 toward the remote tracker 400. Insome embodiments, the remote tracker 400 includes an input component 422(e.g., the first input button 206 and/or the second input button 210)such that the user can actively interact with the remote tracker 400.

The microphone 410 can be configured to capture audio data surroundingthe remote tracker 400. The logic control component 406 can beconfigured to decorate the audio data with location-based metadata(e.g., derived from the spatial information sensor 402) and temporalmetadata (e.g., from a digital clock implemented by the logic controlcomponent 406 or from the spatial information sensor 402). For example,the temporal metadata can be a GPS timestamp from a GPS module. In someembodiments, the logic control component 406 is configured to convertthe audio data to text via a voice recognition process and annotate theaudio data with caption based on the text.

The network interface 414 can be configured to communicate with thenetwork interface 310. In some embodiments, the network interface 414 isconfigured to automatically discover a network interface (e.g., thenetwork interface 310) of a videography drone when the videography droneis within wireless communication radius from the remote tracker 400.

The network interface 414 can be configured to stream the audio datacaptured by the microphone 410 to the network interface 310. In variousembodiments, when the network interface 310 receives the streamed audiodata, the processor 306 stores the streamed audio data in the memory308, or other buffer, cache, and/or data storage space. In someembodiments, the processor 306 synchronizes a video file captured fromthe camera 302 with an audio file from the microphone 410 (e.g., in thememory 308). In these embodiments, the processor 306 stitches the videofile together with the audio file. The stitching can occur after thestreamed audio data is saved as the audio file. In some embodiments, theprocessor 306 is configured to synchronize, in real-time, a video streamcaptured from the camera 302 and the stream of audio data. That is, theprocessor 306 can generate and append to a video file with the streamedaudio data integrated therein in real-time. The processor 306 can savethe generated video file into the memory 308. For example,synchronization of the video stream and the audio stream can be based onat least a timestamp entry associated with the video stream and a timestamp entry associated with the audio stream. These timestamps can beGPS timestamps from the same GPS module or from GPS modules of the sametype and model.

In some embodiments, the logic control component 406 is configured toanalyze the audio data from the microphone 410 to select a voice commandby matching against one or more voice patterns associated with one ormore voice commands. The memory 408 can store the voice patterns andassociations between the voice patterns and the voice commands. Thenetwork interface 414 can be configured to send the selected voicecommand (e.g., a command to start/stop/pause/sensor the video recordingby the camera 302 or to switch between operating modes of the UAV 300)to the network interface 310, in response to selecting the voice commandbased on the audio data analysis. The logic control component 406 can beconfigured to execute the selected command (e.g., a command tostart/stop/pause/mute the audio recording by the microphone 410).

In some embodiments, the logic control component 406 is configured toanalyze the audio data to identify a high noise event. The networkinterface 414 can be configured to notify the network interface 310regarding the high noise event. The processor 306 can be configured toprocess the video data differently in response to the network interface310 receiving a message indicating the high noise event. For example,processing the video data differently can include processing the videodata in slow motion.

In some embodiments, the processor 306 is configured to filter propellernoise from the streamed audio data received from the remote tracker 400.In one example, the UAV 300 includes a microphone 322. The processor 306can subtract the propeller noise recorded by the microphone 322 from thestreamed audio data from the remote tracker 400. In some embodiments,the logic control component 406 is configured to remove propeller noisefrom the audio data prior to streaming the audio data to the videographydrone.

In some embodiments, the microphone 322 is configured to start recordingthe audio data when the network interface 310 notifies the networkinterface 414 that the UAV 300 is in flight or the UAV 300 is on. Insome embodiments, the microphone 322 is configured to start recordingwhen the network interface 310 receives a command from the computingdevice implementing the drone control application. The drone controlapplication, in response to a user interaction with the computingdevice, can send a command to stop or pause the recording. In someembodiments, the drone control application, in response to a userinteraction with the computing device, can add an audio filter, audiotransformer, and/or data compressor to process the audio data capturedby the microphone 322.

In some embodiments, the remote tracker 400 includes a speaker 428. Thespeaker 428 can be configured to play a sound in response to a commandor an alert received via the network interface 414 from the videographydrone (e.g., the UAV 300). For example, the received alert can be anindication that an energy storage (e.g., the energy storage 324) of theUAV 300 is running low.

In some embodiments, the remote tracker 400 includes the light source418 to illuminate an area surrounding the remote tracker 400. Becausethe remote tracker 400 is designed to track the movement of a targetsubject of the camera 302, the light source 418 can facilitate the UAV300 to photograph/film the target subject.

Components (e.g., physical or functional) associated with the UAV 300and/or the remote tracker 400 can be implemented as devices, modules,circuitry, firmware, software, or other functional instructions. Forexample, the functional components can be implemented in the form ofspecial-purpose circuitry, in the form of one or more appropriatelyprogrammed processors, a single board chip, a field programmable gatearray, a network-capable computing device, a virtual machine, a cloudcomputing environment, or any combination thereof. For example, thefunctional components described can be implemented as instructions on atangible storage memory capable of being executed by a processor orother integrated circuit chip. The tangible storage memory may bevolatile or non-volatile memory. In some embodiments, the volatilememory may be considered “non-transitory” in the sense that it is not atransitory signal. Memory space and storages described in the figurescan be implemented with the tangible storage memory as well, includingvolatile or non-volatile memory.

Each of the components may operate individually and independently ofother components. Some or all of the components may be executed on thesame host device or on separate devices. The separate devices can becoupled through one or more communication channels (e.g., wireless orwired channel) to coordinate their operations. Some or all of thecomponents may be combined as one component. A single component may bedivided into sub-components, each sub-component performing separatemethod step or method steps of the single component.

In some embodiments, at least some of the components share access to amemory space. For example, one component may access data accessed by ortransformed by another component. The components may be considered“coupled” to one another if they share a physical connection or avirtual connection, directly or indirectly, allowing data accessed ormodified by one component to be accessed in another component. In someembodiments, at least some of the components can be upgraded or modifiedremotely (e.g., by reconfiguring executable instructions that implementsa portion of the functional components). The systems, engines, ordevices described herein may include additional, fewer, or differentcomponents for various applications.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a method 500 of recording a videoutilizing an UAV (e.g., the UAV 100 and/or the UAV 300) and a remotetracker (e.g., the remote tracker 200 and/or the remote tracker 400), inaccordance with various embodiments. The UAV can be a videography drone.At step 502, the remote tracker can record its location data (e.g., viathe spatial information sensor 402) and audio data (e.g., via themicrophone 410) of its environment. At step 504, the remote tracker candecorate the audio data with location-based metadata and/or temporalmetadata. At step 506, the remote tracker can process the audio dataaccording to one or more gesture-triggered or voice-triggered commands.

For example, the spatial information sensor 402 can provide motionvector information that tracks the movement of the remote tracker. Theremote tracker can then match the motion vector information againstmovement patterns associated with gesture-triggered commands. When thereis a match, the matching gesture-triggered command is executed by theremote tracker and/or delivered to the UAV for execution. In oneexample, the spatial information sensor (e.g., an accelerometer) candetect a jumping motion to trigger a slow mode for the video capture atthe UAV. In another example, a logic control component in the remotetracker can process the audio data to recognize audio patternsassociated with voice-triggered commands. When there is a match, thematching voice-triggered command is executed by the remote trackerand/or delivered to the UAV for execution. The gesture-triggered commandor the voice triggered command can include turning on/off the UAV,starting/stopping/pausing/muting an audio recording by the microphone ofthe remote tracker, starting/stopping/pausing/censoring a videorecording by the camera of the UAV, initiating a slow motion videocapture at the UAV and a corresponding slow audio recording at theremote tracker, a preset data transformation of the audio data or thevideo data, or any combination thereof.

At step 508, the UAV can receive, wirelessly and continuously, a streamof the location data and the audio data from the remote tracker. At step510, the UAV can navigate to a position based on the received locationdata (e.g., at a preset distance and/or angle/direction from the remotetracker). At step 512, the UAV can capture video data with a camerapointing toward the remote tracker based on the location data of theremote tracker. At step 514, a processor of the UAV can stitch the audiodata with the video data based on the temporal metadata of the audiodata and/or the location-based metadata of the audio data. For example,the stitching can include matching a segment of the audio data and asegment of the video data when both segments share the same timestampand/or the same location tag (e.g., after shifting at least one of thelocation tag by the constant distance and/or constant directiondesignated as the preset positioning of the UAV and the remote tracker).

While processes or methods are presented in a given order, alternativeembodiments may perform routines having steps, or employ systems havingblocks, in a different order, and some processes or blocks may bedeleted, moved, added, subdivided, combined, and/or modified to providealternative or subcombinations. Each of these processes or blocks may beimplemented in a variety of different ways. In addition, while processesor blocks are at times shown as being performed in series, theseprocesses or blocks may instead be performed in parallel, or may beperformed at different times.

Some embodiments of the disclosure have other aspects, elements,features, and steps in addition to or in place of what is describedabove. These potential additions and replacements are describedthroughout the rest of the specification. Reference in thisspecification to “various embodiments,” “several embodiments,” or “someembodiments” means that a particular feature, structure, orcharacteristic described in connection with the embodiment is includedin at least one embodiment of the disclosure. Moreover, various featuresare described which may be exhibited by some embodiments and not byothers. Similarly, various requirements are described which may berequirements for some embodiments but not other embodiments.

Some embodiments of the disclosure have other aspects, elements,features, and steps in addition to or in place of what is describedabove. These potential additions and replacements are describedthroughout the rest of the specification.

What is claimed is:
 1. A video drone control system, comprising: anunmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that comprises: a camera configured tocapture video data, a processor configured to process the video data, adrone-side microphone configured to capture background audio datasurrounding the UAV, and a drone-side network interface configured tocommunicate with a remote tracker; and the remote tracker thatcomprises: a spatial information sensor configured to generatelocation-based metadata by continuously determining spatial location ofthe remote tracker, a tracker-side microphone configured to captureaudio data surrounding the remote tracker, a logic control componentconfigured to decorate the audio data with the location-based metadataand temporal metadata, and a tracker-side network interface configuredto communicate with the drone-side network interface, wherein thetracker-side network interface is configured to stream the audio datadecorated by the logic control component to the drone-side networkinterface, and wherein, upon receiving the audio data from the remotetracker, the processor of the UAV is configured to: produce filteredaudio data by filtering the background audio data from the audio data,and generate audio/video (A/V) data by synchronizing the video data andthe filtered audio data based on the temporal metadata or thelocation-based metadata.
 2. The video drone control system of claim 1,wherein the UAV further comprises a first global positioning system(GPS) module, wherein the remote tracker further comprises a second GPSmodule, and wherein the first GPS module and the second GPS module areof a same type and model.
 3. The video drone control system of claim 1,wherein the processor is configured to synchronize, in real-time, avideo stream captured form the camera and an audio stream captured fromthe tracker-side microphone and streamed from the remote tracker to theUAV via the tracker-side network interface.
 4. The video drone controlsystem of claim 3, wherein the processor is configured to synchronizethe video stream and the audio stream based on at least a timestampentry associated with the video stream and a timestamp entry associatedwith the audio stream.
 5. The video drone control system of claim 4,wherein the timestamp entry associated with the video stream and thetimestamp entry associated with the audio stream are global positioningsystem (GPS) timestamps from a single GPS module or GPS modules of asame type and model.
 6. The video drone control system of claim 1,wherein the logic control component is configured to analyze the audiodata from the tracker-side microphone to select a voice command bymatching against one or more voice patterns associated with one or morevoice commands.
 7. The video drone control system of claim 6, whereinthe tracker-side network interface is configured to send the selectedvoice command to the drone-side network interface.
 8. The video dronecontrol system of claim 1, wherein the logic control component isconfigured to analyze the audio data to identify a high noise event, andwherein the tracker-side network interface is configured to notify thedrone-side network interface regarding the high noise event.
 9. Thevideo drone control system of claim 8, wherein the processor isconfigured to process the video data differently in response to thedrone-side network interface receiving a message indicative of the highnoise event.
 10. The video drone control system of claim 8, wherein theprocessor is configured to process the video data differently byprocessing the video data in slow motion.
 11. The video drone controlsystem of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to filterpropeller noise from the streamed audio data received from the remotetracker.
 12. The video drone control system of claim 1, wherein thetracker-side microphone is configured to start recording the audio datawhen the drone-side network interface notifies the tracker-side networkinterface that the UAV is in flight or the UAV is on.
 13. The videodrone control system of claim 1, wherein the tracker-side microphone isconfigured to start recording when the tracker-side network interfacereceives a command from a mobile device separate from the UAV.
 14. Aportable device configured to communicate with a videography drone, theportable device comprising: a spatial information sensor configured togenerate location-based metadata by continuously determining spatiallocation of the portable device; a microphone configured to captureaudio data surrounding the portable device; a logic control componentconfigured to: generate temporal metadata using a digital clock, anddecorate the audio data with the location-based metadata and thetemporal metadata; and a tracker-side network interface configured tocommunicate with the videography drone, wherein the tracker-side networkinterface is configured to stream the audio data decorated by the logiccontrol component to the videography drone, wherein the videographydrone is configured to capture background audio data, and wherein thevideography drone is further configured to, upon receiving the stream ofthe audio data, produce filtered audio data by filtering the backgroundaudio data from the audio data, and generate audio/video (A/V) data bysynchronizing video data captured by the videography drone and thefiltered audio data based on the temporal metadata or the location-basedmetadata.
 15. The portable device of claim 14, further comprising ashockproof casing enclosing the spatial information sensor or themicrophone.
 16. The portable device of claim 14, further comprising: aprotective shell partially enclosing the microphone and exposing aportion of the microphone.
 17. The portable device of claim 16, furthercomprising an impact dampener between the protective shell and themicrophone.
 18. The portable device of claim 14, wherein thetracker-side network interface is configured to automatically discover anetwork interface of the videography drone when the videography drone iswithin wireless communication radius from the portable device.
 19. Theportable device of claim 14, wherein the logic control component isconfigured to convert the audio data to text via a voice recognitionprocess and annotate the audio data with a caption based on the text.20. The portable device of claim 14, wherein the logic control componentis configured to remove propeller noise from the audio data prior tostreaming the audio data to the videography drone.
 21. The portabledevice of claim 14, further comprising a speaker configured to play asound in response to a command or an alert received from the videographydrone via the tracker-side network interface.
 22. The portable device ofclaim 14, further comprising a camera flash or a light source tofacilitate the videography drone to photograph a user carrying theportable device.
 23. A method comprising: recording background noisedata with a microphone of a videography drone; receiving a stream oflocation data and audio data from a user tracker device, the usertracker device separate from the videography drone, wherein the audiodata is decorated with location-based metadata or temporal metadata;navigating the videography drone based on the location data; capturingvideo data with a camera in the videography drone; producing filteredaudio data by filtering the background noise data from the audio data;and generating audio/video (A/V) data by synchronizing the filteredaudio data and the video data based on the temporal metadata or thelocation-based metadata.